Peregrine Press
March 1-5

Schedule
Monday: Art and Running Club
Tuesday: Out and About (LEED Tour of Pacific University)
Wednesday: Art,PE at Pacific University, and Celebrations of Learning 5:00-6:30
Thursday: Music and ELC Buddies
Friday: StarLab Presentation

*Friday will be my last day as the Peregrine Falcon class teacher. I have a mix of emotions going on right now and to be honest, I don't think it has hit me yet that I won't be coming in to school everyday and seeing your wonderful children. In many ways these kids have really felt like my own kids and I feel incredibly attached to them all. I am going to miss them tremendously, as well as the families that I have gotten so close with over the years. I will definitely be coming to visit as much as possible after I get into a routine with the new baby. I am leaving the class in great hands with Becky Tengs and I know everyone is going to have a great end of the year with her. Please be patient as we transition as things will be changing. For example, homework might look a little different for a while as Becky gets into the hang of that. Also, communication will probably look a little different. Becky will continue to update you all weekly in some form of newsletter or blog but it might look a little different (probably way better than I what I do because she is great with technology).

Last Week
Last week our two main projects were Treasure Books and PowerHouse (our energy unit). The students all completed their sloppy copies and have started working on their rough drafts. The rough drafts of the Treasure Books will be due Wednesday the 3rd, and the final drafts are due Monday, March 15th. I have been very impressed with how hard everyone has been working on these. It seems to be going so much smoother than last year! Students are editing more thoroughly, including a lot of details and writing with really nice handwriting.

For the PowerHouse unit students did a great deal of reading. They were learning about passive solar heating, the greenhouse effect, micro-climates and how heat and temperature circulate and move through a house. We conducted a few experiments to test air flow in our mini PowerHouse model and also how to heat water just using solar power (in our case a lamp) in a greenhouse. For our In and About on Tuesday, students made solar ovens in small groups using cardboard, foil, plastic wrap and black paper or plastic. Hopefully this week we will be able to test them out in the sun!


This Week
We will continue to work on Treasure Books and PowerHouse this week. Students will complete their rough drafts and start the final drafts. I will be sending home the order forms on Monday and in case you didn't get the email earlier in the week, every student will get ONE FREE Treasure Book after all. If you want to order more, that it was the form is for. If you plan to just get the one free copy, please write on the order form that you don't want additional copies. Let me know if you have any questions after you see the form. Please return those forms ASAP.

For Out and About we will head to Pacific University to get a tour of their LEED certified buildings (the buildings that are energy efficient.) We will also conduct a few more experiments and do more readings with our PowerHouse unit. Students will be learning about desalinating water, preserving food and how air conditioning and refrigeration work.

We will return to our ELC buddies and share the typed stories that they wrote together the last time we were there. On Friday the students will get to attend a great presentation called StarLab at Central School where they will get to go inside an inflatable dome to learn about the stars. I have never seen it before, but is sounds really fascinating!

Please come to our Celebrations of Learning on Wednesday night from 5:00-6:30. It is open house style so come any time in that block of time. Students will have work displayed so you can see the kinds of things they have been doing in class recently.

Music Update: Students have been learning a states and capitals song, as well as a Fats Dominoe song called "I'm Walking" on the xylophones. The plan is to have a performance in May but I will send out more details as soon as it is all confirmed. It has been so much fun watching these kids smile so much in music. We have some very gifted musicians in this class!

Whale Watching Update: We are still finalizing plans with the coordinator for our whale watching trip so expect a packing list, itinerary and permission form in the next two weeks.

Thanks so much for the pencils that many people donated!

Peregrine Press
February 22-26

Schedule
Monday: Art
Tuesday: Out and About (making solar ovens)
Wednesday: Art and PE at Pacific University
Thursday: Music
Friday: Fitness Friday

Last Week
We wrapped up our solar system unit last week with activities based on the phases of the moon and seasons. The students acted out the different phases of the moon, how the seasons happen and what day and night, and a year look like in small groups. The students also used bagels with cream cheese to represent the phases of the moon. We watched a fascinating movie on the Mars Rover to finish up the week! This unit went by very quickly, but I was very pleased with how focused everyone was and the amount that they all learned. The other main focus for the short week was the Treasure Book. Students have all been writing their sloppy copies and will soon be turning those into very nice rough drafts after editing and revising.
Thursday we met up with our ELC buddies again and did things a bit differently. The little buddies told stories to the big buddies who wrote them down. This coming week the big buddies will type up the stories and then when we return in another week they will do some illustrations together that go along with the story. We also got to play out in their very cool play yard. Some students created an obstacle course that turned out to be quite fun for everyone. The All School Meeting was full of many different announcements and the class did a great job of being a respectful audience. We followed that up with Fitness Friday at Central with Gretchen's class. It was fun to do that together-seeing so many kids exercising together is always a great site!

This Week
We are returning to a full week this week. Students will be starting a new unit on energy called "PowerHouse." It is a great unit that will teach about renewable energy with great hands on experiments. In the coming weeks students will be creating solar ovens, using mini-solar panels, getting electricity from lemon juice and learning about a variety of other ways to harness energy and use it without harming the environment.
Students will also be working on their treasure books. I would like their sloppy copies turned in to me by Wednesday so students can start editing and then start writing their rough draft. The rough draft will look almost as good as their final draft so they will need to slow down and put even more effort into that stage than the sloppy copy. From what I have seen so far, these books are going to be great!

Upcoming Events
*Celebrations of Learning: March 3rd 5-6:30 (This is an open house type event where you can come check out things that have been going on in the classroom and the school. Please come!)
*No School March 12th
*Final Draft of Treasure Book Due March 15th
*Spring Break March 22-26

**Garden Club is on Fridays after school and we would love to have more students involved. If your child is interested they can pick up a permission slip from me. We really want to get this going!

**We are out of pencils. We have noticed that Ticonderoga is a brand that doesn't seem to have as many problems with sharpening so if anyone can donate that brand in particular that would be great. I am also happy to have students bring in their OWN mechanical pencils that they can keep in a small pencil pouch with them throughout the day. The room is constantly cluttered with broken pencils, and I am willing to try letting students have their OWN pencils if that would mean less trips to the sharpener and less of a pencil wasteland on the floor. If they do use mechanical pencils they will need to have their own lead refills.

Newsletter

Peregrine Press
February 16-19

Schedule
Tuesday: Out and About (Phases of the Moon) & 4th Grade State Writing Test
Wednesday: Art & PE at Pacific University (Very last day of 4th Grade State Writing Test)
Thursday: Music & ELC Buddies
Friday: All School Meeting & Hopefully Fitness Friday

Last Week
Last Week we spent time looking at the Solar System, and distances all the planets are from the sun and each other. On our Out and About we were quite surprised to see how far they really are! The students also spent a great deal of time working on their planet projects and everyone presented to the class the things they learned about the planet they studied. The 4th graders spent time working on the writing test while the 5th and 6th graders completed a variety of different literacy activities surrounding editing and reading comprehension in particular. Some students also worked on reading fluency and writing. We did our second round of Mystery Classroom and looked at improving our calculations of photoperiods. I was very impressed with how quickly many students were able to transfer to military time and calculate photoperiods. On Friday students did watch the different body changes videos and I feel that it went very well. I was very impressed with how mature the students were in dealing with a somewhat awkward topic!

This Week
We will be learning about the phases of the moon to conclude our mini-solar system unit and will view a video on the Mars Rover probably on Friday. Students will also continue with the Mystery Classroom activity. The majority of the rest of the time will be spent on the Treasure Books. My goal is to have students working on their "sloppy copies" this week and part of next week. After the sloppy copy they will do a lot of editing alone and with me and then they will write their rough draft. That will be followed by more editing and then they will do their final draft. In total they will have about 1 month to do this but it is really important that they meet the final deadline because if they don't, their book will not be bound. The final draft is due on March 15th. If students are going to type them they have to do all that at home and print them at home. It gets way too complicated to do that at school. It is NOT required to be typed, and to be honest, I would rather they write them because if they type them at home, they are often left with "nothing to do" during Treasure Book time at school and will be tempted to just goof off.

There are a few 4th graders that will have to finish the writing test this week so they will miss treasure book work time. I talked to them about this last week and they are aware of this so they may have some work to do at home to get caught up on their sloppy copy depending on how much time they take on the state test.

Wednesday we will be starting PE at Pacific University. This is a great opportunity for the students to have a more traditional PE (in a gym) and Teaching Students at Pacific will get the chance to practice being PE teachers. Rick will still take them to PE but he will not be the instructor while they are there. The teaching students are supervised by Pacific Education staff so they are in good hands. They will go for 3 weeks now, then take 3 weeks off and go back for another 3 weeks. It is kind of a scheduling mess, but it was the only way to do it.
Friday we will have an All School Meeting and then if time permits, we will have Fitness Friday as well.

*There will be no Word Work (spelling) this week because of the tight schedule so some students that normally have spelling homework from me will not be getting that this week.

Peregrine Press
February 8-12

Schedule
Monday: Art; 4th Grade State Writing Test
Tuesday: Out and About (Solar System); 4th Grade State Writing Test
Wednesday: 4th Grade State Writing Test, PE
Thursday: Music; 4th Grade State Writing Test
Friday: Art; Body Changes Videos (boys separate from girls); Valentine's Day

Last Week
Last week we started two new units: Solar System and Mystery Classroom. Students started out the Solar System unit by working in groups to research a component of our solar system, created a small poster and presented to the class what they learned. The topics included moons, planets, comets, asteroids, dwarf planets and the sun. Then they started a small project on a planet of their choice. They are working alone or with a partner to create a travel brochure/poster to advertise things about the planet they are studying. This will feed into this week as well. They are learning about atmosphere, presence of rings and moons, composition of the planets and their orbits and rotations. Students also learned about the Big Bang on our Out and About where they participated in a very interesting timeline activity to show just how old the solar system is. The other part of the Out and About was more of an In and About where students made solar viewers to try and measure the distance we are from the sun. It was really interesting!
For Mystery Classroom students started documenting sunrise and sunset times for our town, and their mystery site. The students are in groups of 2 or 3 and will be keeping track of photoperiod (day length) lengths for their mystery site for the next few months. They will start to get geographical clues as well to try and determine where in the world the mystery site is. It is a challenging activity, but I know the students will really enjoy it!
Finally, students wrapped up their literacy projects, and I must say I was really impressed with how many students turned their projects in on time and did a nice job on the different components. Compared to the group literacy projects from earlier in the year, this was a big improvement in meeting deadlines for students.

This Week
We will be continuing our planet travel brochures this week and the students will do mini-presentations on them Tuesday or Wednesday. For our Out and About we will be looking at how to make a model of the Solar System.
The 4th graders will be participating in the State Writing Test Monday through Thursday, with make up times the following week for students that are absent. The 5th and 6th graders will stay back in class with me and work on different literacy activities depending on areas they need to improve upon. Students will also be collecting data for they mystery classroom this week.
Thursday students will have time to make valentine containers out of recycled/reusable materials and Friday students will be allowed to pass out Valentines. We will not be having "party" but students will simply have time to pass out their valentines and socialize for a little bit at the end of the day. Students do need to make valentines for everyone, or no one. We don't want anyone feeling left out. Friday we will also be showing the body changes videos. Boys will be separate from girls. If you have objections to this please let me know.

*No School Monday February 15th
*We will start Treasure Books Tuesday February 16th.
*Thanks again for the surprise shower on Thursday! To give you an update on my work status, I am planning on working as long as I can until I deliver. I will for sure be gone starting March 15th, but if things get too difficult for me, or I go into early labor I will leave when I need to. Becky is on board to start whenever I need her to, but she will for sure be taking over starting March 15th. Becky will be amazing!